Anthony Wilson
The transfer portal for the 2023-24 offseason has officially closed, with the spring window coming to an end last week and many top uncommitted prospects choosing their new destination in recent weeks. The spring window was not only smaller in size (14 days) than the winter window, but it also lacked the same drama and seismic movements.
And that’s great for college football.
It’s not best for business if your business is based on the transfer portal buzz, as it is for us at Cover 3 Podcast. As we closed out the spring portal window this week on the show, a prevailing theme was that while we didn’t have any juicy moves to generate intrigue and conversation, the sport as a whole showed a stability that is encouraging moving forward.
There are other explanations, of course. The SEC, for example, does not allow transfers between schools in the spring window. But even with that in mind, there was a sense that programs prepared to invest in talent would be able to scale to meet their needs. But the window opened and closed, and we didn’t see any major moves from the quarterback or many of the rumored big moves.
That’s where the health of the sport is on display, according to my Cover 3 co-host Bud Elliott, as teams not found among the top 15-20 programs in the country have still found ways to retain talent on their roster.
“Shout out to most of the collectives and fanbases out there,” Elliott said. “It seems that many schools [paid to keep their players]. And generally, it will be cheaper to keep your player than to go out and acquire another one, it’s a better deal. If you have a guy, he lives at home and you like him, I think a lot of schools paid to keep him at home. I don’t know if this was predicted or anticipated for everyone, and we didn’t know what to expect from the court’s decision [allowing unlimited transfers].
“This was a really boring window in terms of talent, but I’m glad for a lot of fans that their teams didn’t get picked.”
There is already a growing divide between the so-called “haves” and the “have-nots” among conferences at the Football Bowl Subdivision level, and in recent years similar divisions have grown even within the power conferences. If the top 15-20 programs can simply purchase the rosters of other power conference teams in each portal window, the sport will become even more divided and the opportunity for parity or balance will continue to diminish. Seeing programs keep these highly coveted players on the roster suggests that the level of investment in roster retention is high enough to keep the sport’s middle class competitive.
A great example is UCLA defenseman Jay Toia, who was Texas’ top target in the portal. Toia was even in Austin for the Longhorns’ spring game, but upon returning home, he withdrew his name from the portal and recommitted to the Bruins. In some cases, a player hasn’t even gotten to the point of officially entering the portal; amidst a buzz of interest from elsewhere, an ace would announce a new deal with his original show’s NIL collective.
Schools keeping their star players away from poachers was a refreshing reminder that roster retention can be just as important as any high school recruiting or transfer portal addition. So while the spring portal window doesn’t have the kind of buzz that might be good for business for those of us who host a college football podcast, overall it’s a good thing for fans and the sport as a whole. , that the new world of player movement is not entirely dominated by the schools that can afford to spend the most.
You can listen to the Cover 3 Podcast transfer portal discussion in more detail below.
